We propose to develop a routine, computerized method for measuring brain atrophy in MRI images of brains of normal and alcoholic subjects. The program will be developed using a library of normal brain images, and will be tested using another group of images. The results obtained by the program will be compared with those obtained by an expert observer doing the measurements manually. The parameters to be measured will be ventricular volume, total brain volume, white matter volume, cortical gray volume, and subcortical gray volume. These measurements will be made as automatically as possible, with operator intervention as necessary if the program is unable to locate the desired structures in some images. When the method appears to work reliably it will be tested using images of alcoholic brains, and the alcohol-related atrophy will be quantitated. The method will be made available to alcohol researchers and other neurological disease researchers. We will design the method to be as portable as possible to other computer systems so that it can be used at other sites as well.